Instagram is less than four years old while Facebook has been around for ten. The growth potential of Instagram advertising is enormous with its amount of brand activity increasing almost 50% each year.
You might be thinking: but surely Facebook marketing is still more effective?
Over the last quarter, Instagram reached 3.4 billion “actions,” that is, likes, comments, and shares, compared to Facebook’s 6 billion. The real kicker is is that, on average, Facebook averaged 2396 actions per post while Instagram averaged 6932.
That’s a huge difference in terms of potential brand awareness and activity. Essentially, Instagram has 3x the amount of user engagement than Facebook. 3x the chance to interact with an audience. 3x the opportunity to get your business out there.
If you’re now thinking Instagram marketing could be the way to go, here a few quick tips and ideas to get you started:
- Link your Instagram pictures to Facebook – but only when relevant. As we discussed in our latest Facebook article, don’t make it look like spam. Share interesting infographics or pictures that relate to your business and your customers. This will spread awareness of your Instagram account to your loyal Facebook followers and will also increase Facebook activity.
- Align your Instagram profile with your brand. If your company is digitally based and targeted, start posting frequently and build up a strong following. If not, perhaps save Instagram for special occasions like sales or events that you can hashtag and share on Facebook.
- Visit the “hot tags” page to see how posts are tagged and where your profile would fit into the popular hashtags.
- Create a brand specific hashtag for your customers to use when they interact with your product or service. “Regram” some of the best and tag the Instagram users who tagged you. This will boost loyalty, follower interest, and activity.
If you or your business have an Instagram account, let us know! We also want to know if you think Instagram is catching up to Facebook so like, comment, and share below.
